Happy Daddy Day
by Baffled Queen
Summary: Elias celebrates Father's Day with his boys.


Senseless fluff, because my two talents are that and life ruining angst. only minor angst here, though, because of Elias' wife. You punks got lucky.

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The first Father's Day that he's actually a father he spends all day in bed, snuggling his gurgling 3 month old son and just marveling. All David does is sleep and cry, it seems like, and it's still wonderful. Some nights he feels like tearing his hair out when he hears the baby cry, but now his son is quiet, gripping his finger with one tiny hand, and everything is perfect. Joanna leans over his shoulder and he has no idea how long they stay like that, but it's just perfect. Nothing could be better. Well. Until David pukes on his new work shirt. Gabe makes fun of him for his 'daddy badge' the next day, but that evening his father calls to call him an old man and announce their impending visit.

.oO0Oo.

When David is 15 months old, his second Father's day Elias gets woken up by the boy leaping onto his stomach with a screechy "Dah-dee!" And that's painful, but oh so cute. "Well good morning to you, too, big boy," he chuckles, and Joanna's laughter is music to his ears. Then he sighs. "IHOP?" he asks tiredly, grunting as his baby boy began to bounce of his stomach. "Honey, don't do that," Elias says firmly before sitting up, "Daddy needs to get dressed so we can go get pancakes." There's a loud gasp from his abdominal region before the baby rolls off of him. "Pantates! 'Hop 'hop 'hop!" David squeals, jumping and rolling all over the bed in his excitement. Elias can't help laughing as he pulls a clean t-shirt over his head and tugs some jeans on. "Yeah bubby, pancakes!"

.oO0Oo.

David's 2 already, walking and talking (god, he never _stops_ talking) with ease and harassing his parents. And he hates naps, too, there's that. Suddenly it's Father's Day again and this time Joanna doesn't have to carry him in to say good morning on the one day a year he could sleep in. David comes blitzing into the room like the hounds of hell are nipping at his heels and launches himself onto the bed with a cry of "Daddy!" And just like last year, his best friend comes in. "We're going to go bother your parents today, so neither of us have to cook," she says, and that sounds great to him. He changes David's diaper, puts some clothes on, and they get drive-thru breakfast from McDonald's.

His mother greets them at the door by totally ignoring them in favor of kissing and cuddling their son, and his father stays parked in front of a football game drinking shitty almost-beers, but they chat long hours into the night and give him five grand as a present, so it's whatever. His father pulls him aside and tells him that he's proud of the man Elias has become, and Elias hides in the car for forty-five minutes while he cries like a baby. David waddles out in his racecar pj's and pats his face while he sobs. And then they eat chocolate cake. All in all, it's a perfect day.

.oO0Oo.

His son is 3, and his pre-school teacher sends him home with a sheet of paper that's just a picture of a tree, but the leaves are his son's footprints. Joanna frames it after she helps him write his name on it, and that's his present for the year. It's paired with a cheerful "Happy Daddy Day!" and an exorbitant amount of cuddles. They all end up staying in their pj's all day long, watching an odd mixture of cartoons and shitty 80's buddy cop shows. His son is perfect, his wife is perfect, and by next January they should have another perfect addition to their world. They order in for dinner because nobody is dressed, or even feels like cooking for that matter. Thankfully there's ice cream in the freezer. Pizza and ice cream is the name of the day.

.oO0Oo.

David is 4. David is 4, and Logan is 8 months old, and Elias loves them more then life. But life without his best friend, without Joanna, has been. Very hard. His mother has been over every other day or so to check on them, and keep David busy. They were expecting twins. They were expecting twins in January, but instead he had Logan in October. Elias had had a hard time juggling extensive time in the NICU with getting Joanna buried and keeping David from going crazy. He'd explained death as well as you could to a 3 year old, but he still cried for his mother every night. And Logan was getting to look so much like her, just like David was practically a copy him. His mother had taken the boys for Father's day, and he felt alone.

Elias gets showered and is just dressed in time to hear his mother in the kitchen. And those two sweet voices that always remind him to keep going. "C'mon, Logan, say 'Daddy'!" David urges, wide eyed and expectant. Elias smiles gently, running a nervous hand through his wet hair. Logan's sweet little face turns toward his and he beams. "Aaaaaah!" he squeals, waving a pair of chubby fists at him excitedly. David smiles at him nervously, shuffling around in his light-up sneakers. "Oh, my boys," Elias sighs, hefting Logan and burying his nose into the short blond curls and pulling David into him. His mother just smiles understandingly and turns back to the oven.

"Made you a picture," David mumbles into his leg, and when he asks if he can see it the boy smiles shyly. It's a normal kid's picture. A house in the center, a sun draw into a corner, a single stripe of sky, 'w' birds, and three overlarge flowers. Plus three stickfigures, two with brown hair and a really small one with blond. 'Hape Dade Day' is scrawled awkwardly along the bottom, signed by 'Daev' and a funny looking squiggle that is so obviously Logan's clumsy doing. It's normal. Elias himself had drawn dozens literally just like it, minus the caption. But it's beautiful in every way. It's perfect, and Elias starts crying. Just bawling in the kitchen, holding a lovingly colored child's picture in one hand and his too-small 8 month old in the other.

"Daddy 'm sorry my picture made you sad, I pomise I'll get rid of it," David is crying now too, and that's badbadbad, but he can't stop he's just so happy. Then Logan starts wailing because the other two are crying, and Elias' mother starts laughing between sobs into a towel so the cookies don't get ruined.

It takes hours to get Logan calmed down and David reassured that he _loves_ the picture, but for the first time in several months Elias is truly happy.

.oO0Oo.

It is June 6th, 2027.

"Hesh, boost me up," Logan whispered in his quiet way. His brother turned to look at him, old shotgun still in hand, and raised an eyebrow as he straps the old thing to his back. "Boost me up," He repeats, nodding toward the bit of upper floor that's still left "I mean it, David Aiden," he adds when his brother tells him 'no'. It's probably the use of his name that gets his brother to agree to boost him up. Logan stood in the bit of hallway that used to be in front of his room, staring through the place the door had been into the wilds. All that's left is one wall, a battered dresser emptied by scavengers ages ago. His bedframe was actually in the hallway downstairs, rusted and warped. Nothing of their father's room is left, not even the wall that the rooms had shared.

But Logan had seen it out of the corner of his eye, just a hint, and he'd known he had to have it. Somehow, be it providence or luck, it had survived almost wholly untouched. Protected by rubble and roof, it had been spared the ravages of time. The glass had been broken, but that was okay. Logan removed the fragments carefully and stuffed it into his pack. He gave everything a last sorrowful look around, missing the people they'd been, and then leapt down. The floor thunked beneath him, boards creaking ominously. "What was that about?" Hesh asked blandly, still cranky from the use of his real name. Logan opens his pack and shows him what he'd taken, and David smiles. "Oh, Logan, that's perfect!"

It is June 14th, 2027.

Elias wakes instantly, eyes snapping open. Then he relaxes, rolling his eyes mentally as he recognizes his son's silhouettes. "Boys, _what_ on god's green earth are you two idiots up to?" he asks drily, smiling at David's snort of amusement. "Well," his older son says quietly, taking the lead as usual "We're shipping out to fuck up Ramos' day tomorrow." Yes, Elias already knows that, since he's the one who told them they were going to do it. David, Logan a silent support by his side, keeps going when Elias says nothing. "And Father's Day's in like, 6 days, and we're probably going to be really busy, so. We're celebrating it today. You don't even have to get out of bed, if you don't want." What a beautiful pipe dream. Unfortunately, there's no way in seven hells that he can take a day off. He tells them as much and Logan makes an aborted grumbling noise.

"Logan took care of that." his older son says in a tone that tells him exactly how insulted they are, and what? How? "Merrick's doing 'traffic control', i.e giving people orders according to your plans for today, Keegan's with the brains doing strategy, and Neptune is keeping Kick from fucking up your paperwork too badly, sooo... You have literally nothing to do." Holy shit. A day off. After ten fucking years of this bullshit, he finally has a day off. "Well, shit," Elias says wonderingly, and he's still so surprised that he doesn't even protest them pressing their way under his covers and into his bed. "Go back to sleep, Dad," Logan sighs into his shoulder as he pulls the plug on his alarm clock. And frankly, being pressed upon on both sides by his adult sons, Elias can't think of anything better to do.

He wakes up again an indefinite amount of time later, slowly this time, and he finds them exactly where they were. Snuggled into his sides, laptop resting on his stomach, heads on his chest, illegally streaming NCIS reruns from nearly fifteen years ago. "Oh, hey Dad," David says conversationally, only to be shushed by his brother. And then Logan jolts upwards, head knocking on the underside of Elias chin. Then he rolls out of the bed onto the floor, for no apparent reason. Logan snags his backpack from the floor and opens the zip, reaching in and pulling out a picture frame. He hands it to Elias and he sucks in a breath.

It's a normal kid's picture, with a house in the center, a sun in the corner, a single stripe of sky, 'w' birds, and three overlarge flowers. Plus three stickfigures, two with brown hair and a really small one with blond. 'Hape Dade Day' the bottom reads, signed by a much younger set of hands. 'Daev' in one spot, a clumsy squiggle that was Logan's John Hancock. It's normal. David and Logan both had drawn dozens upon dozens of these back in the day. But it's the most beautiful thing Elias has seen in his life. He can't help the tears any more then he can help his heart beating.

They stay in bed all day, watching shitty buddy cop shows and retro batman cartoons, and they don't put clothes on. Once or twice an increasingly haggard looking Merrick poked his head in to ask a question, but all in all, Elias was happier then he'd been in a long, _long_ time.

* * *

Well there you go. Sickening fluff with a hint of angst. A holiday fic actually posted on a holiday.

Also, why isn't Elias on the character list? We should probably fix that ;p

As always, review! What was your favorite part? Least favorite?


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